Thursday, July 21, 2016

Cafe Society Review (2016)

Woody Allen never met a major city he couldn’t make beautiful and majestic. In his latest feature “Café
Society,”—a nostalgic romantic comedy/drama set in the fabulous thirties—we get
two for the price of one: New York and L.A.

Lush, sun-drenched shots of affluent L.A. neighborhoods
dominate the first half while the sublime New York skyline dominates the
second. Beverly Hills mansions with ornate swimming pools, patios and balconies
are juxtaposed with exquisite upscale Manhattan penthouses and nightclubs. From
a technical standpoint the film is simple yet elegant and neat. Allen seems
physically incapable of making a city look less than perfect. Adding to all of
this city porn are loving descriptions of said cities—at one point the narrator,
Allen himself, says: “a beautiful dusk sky enveloped New York”—upbeat jazz
music and a relationship between an older man and a young woman.

We’re in Woody Allen land all right.

Unfortunately, as beautiful as “Café Society” is it can’t
help but feel frustratingly surface-level. The cities and the societies within
them don’t come alive the way they have in previous Allen films. The two
settings feel more like backdrops rather than three-dimensional environments. Additionally,
the second half of the movie is a narrative mess, which leaves the viewer with
a bitter taste in their mouth.

It’s a shame because the first thirty minutes or so are
solid. Naïve neurotic New Yorker Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg, playing a younger
version of the kind of nebbish character Allen used to play in his movies)
moves to L.A and is taken under the wing of his somewhat brash, headstrong
uncle Phil (Steve Carell, amusing with a hint of vulnerability), a Hollywood
agent. At swanky cocktail parties Bobby is introduced to the Hollywood elite.
However he’s more captivated by the down to earth charm of Vonnie (Kristen
Stewart), Phil’s secretary and lover.

Stewart and Eisenberg are the best things about “Café
Society.” Stewart continues to show that she’s so far above the “Twilight”
franchise, giving a quietly charming and self-assured performance. Vonnie may
be soft spoken but she isn’t passive and even though she becomes locked in a
love triangle she remains strong and independent minded. Meanwhile, Eisenberg
easily slides into the role of fidgety but kindhearted Bobby. It’s the kind of
role Eisenberg can play in his sleep.

As a pair they’re effortless, transcendent even. Their
flirty, banter-y conversations feel so natural and vivacious. The minute they
get together they click and suddenly you want the whole movie to be just them
walking around and talking.

But it isn’t.

Aside from the romantic angle, “Café Society” is about the
social elite--in Hollywood and later on in Manhattan when Bobby goes back to
help run a high-class nightclub-- and how it tries to corrupt these two innocent,
genuine kids. Both Bobby and Vonnie are brought into this life and they think
it’s what they want. However, in L.A. they feel more at home eating dinner at a
shabby “hole-in-the-wall” Mexican restaurant than at a swanky party surrounded
by rich folk. In other words, high society may be glamorous but it’s also superficial
and unsatisfying. The film’s resolution, while mostly cheerful, has an
underlying sense of melancholy and regret. Everything didn’t turn out the way
it should have.

This is certainly an intriguing idea but Allen’s touch is
often too soft and polite.Because the
film looks so magnificent, because there are so many lavish party sequences and
because the tone is generally upbeat and jaunty it feels like Allen is more enamored
with this lifestyle then critical of it. At one point Bobby says he wants to go
back to New York because he finds L.A. to be “nasty” and “boring” and he can’t
take all the “backstabbing” but we don’t see anything in the film that would
warrant that kind of negative reaction. We see none of the “nastiness” or
“backstabbing.”

If Allen is indeed more enamored with this lifestyle than
critical that’s fine but his depiction of it is nevertheless shallow. More
often than not it’s like we’re viewing a museum diorama. There’s a lot of
name-dropping and listing in a lazy attempt to create atmosphere. In L.A., famous Hollywood stars like Paul Muni
and Ginger Rogers are mentioned in passing and in New York Allen’s narrator
lists the various influential people who frequent the nightclub. In short, we
don’t feel like we’re there because Allen doesn’t explore these worlds in great
enough depth.

Making things worse, the second half is a total
mess—unfocused and rushed. A thriller side plot involving Bobby’s gangster
brother Ben (Corey Stoll) is poorly established and hastily resolved. Blake
Lively shows up as a rival romantic partner for Bobby and is given absolutely
nothing to do and Carrell is sadly pushed off to the side. Additionally, Allen manages
to cram in a quick crisis of faith and philosophical conversations about love,
death and religion into the mix, which further confuse things. It’s sloppy writing,
pure and simple.

Woody Allen continues to write and direct one film a year; a
work ethic I admire. However it also means that instead of taking some
additional time to polish and refine his screenplays he churns and burns. As a
result, he’s made a lot of decent but forgettable pictures. “Café Society” is
sadly one of those and outside of Eisenberg/Stewart and the pretty
cinematography/ production design there’s not much reason to see it.